CG In WS: Anxiety is terrible. I’ve heard of people feeling faint, but my symptoms always come with a panic attack. It’s awful. At that moment you would do anything to make it go away and you are not in your right mind.
Well, one day I had my two pre-school boys in the car and we all thought it would be great fun to go through the car wash. Another thing about panic attacks, until they hit you, it’s like they aren’t really real. So, there I was, having a good ole time proceeding through the line and getting the blast of soap suds sprayed at the sides of the car. It was a typical one-lane entrance into the car wash building. That building loomed in front of me, a male sprayer and a female guide stood to the sides of the traffic line, moving everyone forward, and a long line of traffic was behind me. There was nowhere to go.
The sweat started, the shaking in my limbs made me almost numb and I was certain I needed an immediate trip to the bathroom. But, there was nowhere to go. In agony, I had no choice but to suffer my way through the car wash process, but I just knew I couldn’t make it.
Guess what happened? This is when I learned the truth about anxiety – that it’s a big, imagined lie that we allow on ourselves! What happened was, in about 5 minutes or so, I emerged from the car wash…..That’s it!
I had made it. The kids were laughing and happy, still pretending the “octopus” was after us. All those minutes of being certain I couldn’t get through this and there I was, through it without any incident at all. That’s the day I knew I could beat it. And, on most days, I have!